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July 2016

A CCA spokesperson said that the standoff between inmates and prison guards has been resolved, reports San Angelo Live!.

As reported earlier, a protest at the Eden Detention Center started late in the evening of July 29th. A caller to San Angelo Live!, who identified herself only as a sister of an inmate, revealed that her brother said "that the inmates are being treated inhumanely." She went on to state that he said "they wanted to be treated with dignity and like human beings."

CCA spokesperson Steven Owen did not reveal if any of the grievances of the inmates were addressed to resolve the protest that was characterized as "passive."

A report of a protest at Eden Detention Center has been confirmed by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) officials, reports San Angelo Live!

A CCA spokesperson said in a statement, "A group of inmates at the Eden Detention Center is refusing to leave the recreation yard and return to their housing units." This statement confirms previous reports San Angelo Live! received from various outlets, including a woman who called to say she is a sister of an inmate in the Eden Correctional Facility. She said that her brother told her that "pretty much the whole facility was protesting."

Personnel were seen entering the facility in full riot gear that evening around 10:10 p.m. An ambulance was also seen leaving Eden at approximately the same time. We will share

developments as they are released.

The Eden prison is one of the federal government’s segregated prisons for immigrants, or “Criminal Alien Requirement” (CAR) facilities. We’ve covered it since 2010, when a prisoner uprising caused a lockdown there.

A privately-operated lockup in Groesbeck, Texas — the Limestone County Detention Center — may reopen under new management by the LaSalle Southwest Correctional private prison corporation, according to a story at KWTX last week:

"The county-owned, but privately-operated Limestone County Detention Center, which was shuttered three years ago, leaving 240 staffers jobless, could reopen as early as next month, Limestone County Judge Daniel Burkeen confirmed Tuesday.

The county and private prison management company LaSalle Southwest Corrections signed a contract last week, Burkeen said.

"We are optimistic that as the county and the sheriff work together with LaSalle, a number of federal inmates will be able to repopulate the facility,” Burkeen said.

LaSalle also operates McLennan County’s Jack Harwell Detention Center, which handles not only federal prisoners, but also an overflow of inmates from the McLennan County Jail.

The company already has a team in place to prepare to reopen the 1,100-bed detention center, working on such things as air conditioning and heating units that haven’t been used in three years."

As Holly reported earlier this year, Limestone County officials had hopes of reopening the shuttered Limestone County Detention Center by potentially contracting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

The KWTX article explains the rotating cast of prison operators.

"In July 2013 Management Training Corporation, which under an agreement with the county was supposed to have paid a minimum of $62,500 a month to rent the complex, announced that it was closing the center and pulling out after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided to stop sending suspected illegal immigrants detained at the border to the center, opting instead to return them to their home countries.

Until May 31, 2013, the detention center was operated by Community Education Centers or CEC, which pulled out after losing its contract with the federal government to house inmates, but county officials had been hopeful that MTC could keep the facility filled."

We'll see if this new management agreement actually leads to prisoners filling this for-profit prison.

Duval County officials have submitted a proposal to ICE to turn a San Diego nursing home into a family detention center, the San Antonio Current reports.

As we reported previously, Jim Wells County decided to end negotiations with Serco, the UK-based private prison company that hoped to turn a nursing home into a new immigrant family detention facility. The city of San Diego sits in both Jim Wells and Duval Counties, so officials in Duval are voting on the proposed new facility. Duval County Judge Ricardo O. Carrillo submitted the proposal to ICE without having a public hearing over the issue saying "the timeline didn't allow it."

Bishop Michael Mulvey, of the Corpus Christi Diocese, said in a statement that Judge Carrillo bypassed the will of the people of San Diego, who had already spoken on the issue. Bishop Mulvey also said, "I believe that the Duval County Commissioners would hear similar things to what the Jim Wells and Dimmit County commissioners heard: that our communities do not want to build facilities that incarcerate vulnerable women, children and babies."

According to PR Newswire, Community Education Centers (CEC), a private prison company, announced the award of a contract with Reagan County to operate the Reagan County Jail in Big Lake, Texas.

The contract was awarded on July 11, but was just announced. It has a contract term of 10 years, with the option of two 5-year extensions. The facility will open on November 7th, and have a bed capacity of 96.